and later,,,,,,,, >> osgood: even john lennon, the famous beatle needed a publisher for his first book "in his own right" back in 1964. today authors nobody ever heard had can publish their own work all by themselves in their own right, as it were. our cover story is reported now by rit a braver. >> reporter: what were you living in when you wrote the first book. >> we had 700 square feet that was... that was finished. >> reporter: richard paul evans went from that salt lake city house to this one, all because of a little tale he wrote for his daughters. you didn't think, okay, i want to sell this and people are going to buy this and everyone will fall in love with this book. >> the idea of being a novelist is really romantic but it's kind of the same as being a president of the united states. it's like it's not going to happen. >> reporter: but it did happen for rick evans. you may remember the christmas box, a mega hit 20 years ago. so this is the original little book that you published. evans first printed only 20 copies of the book but in the days before the internet took off, frie